Although shifting from Macalester to St. Paul Academy is only a matter of a few blocks, the shift from being a college student to high school student is quite a drastic change. However, Upper School math teacher Carl Corcoran seems to have adapted to the change relatively well.
“I just graduated from Macalester in May, and of course everyone graduating in the spring is looking frantically for jobs, and I wasn’t having a whole lot of luck,” Corcoran said. “But then the chair of [Macalester’s] math department got an email from Chris Hughes asking if she had any recent graduates who would be a good fit for teaching math at the Upper School.”
“I was very, very pleased because I had always wanted to teach, especially math at the high school level,” Corcoran said. “It’s kind of the dream job for me…Once I knew this job was available, I said ‘I have to get this by any means.’”
Corcoran was a double major at Macalester, majoring in Mathematics and Political Science. He hopes to find a way to get involved with political science in the school as well. “I think politics are really interesting,” he said. “I always like to discuss politics without ever giving away what side I’m on.”
According to Corcoran, incorporating political science in the math curriculum would be an interesting place to start. “If I could integrate it into my math classes, I would love to. We could do some electoral math and find all the different ways a candidate could win.”